i predict it. >> that brings me to this question. if you could perform a mind meld with anyone in congress, who would it be? >> mind meld with anyone in congress? well, the real challenge would be eric cantor. but i think he is a pure klingon. i think the mind meld probably will come from someone like -- now let me think of some republicans. >> michele bachmann? [ laughter ] >> i think she is a female klingon. give me some help here. what kind -- >> well, louie gohmert. >> what? >> louie gohmert. >> there you are. >> it is -- i think the president very worldly ahead of his game today when he did that. i think he connected with a lot of people around the country. and i thought it was very interesting. now, here is the president. i want to get your reaction on

the supreme court prop 8 case. here it is. >> the supreme court asks me or my attorney general or a solicitor general do we think that meets constitutional muster, i felt it was important for us to answer that question honestly. and the answer is no. >> george, is it something the president clearly got correct today? >> i think so. again, bringing in my "star trek" colleague mr. spock, he would say that gays and lesbians are the children of heterosexuals. we are literally brothers and sisters of -- blood brothers and blood sisters of heterosexuals. we are literally members of the family. and why those heterosexuals would want to deny the same rights and responsibilities that they enjoy just doesn't make sense. it's illogical. >> all right. george takei, great to have you on "the ed show" tonight. i appreciate your time and your

insight. thank you so much. >> good to be here. >> that's "the ed show." i'm ed schultz. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, ed. happy friday. i could listen to george takei read the phone book. but hearing him quote spock, i'm kind of dying that was amazing. >> have a great weekend, a great show. >> thank you. and thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. happy friday. and on the occasion of yet another truly freakin' wintry weekend, when it is way too cold to fish, and i do not know how to ice fish, let us bask for a moment in our collective love for the weather channel. now in telling you that i love the weather channel, i have to disclose that apparently we're owned by the same parent company, which has no consequences for me at all. but honestly, i would tell you that i love them even if they were owned by satan. i love them. i'm thrilled to have any connection to the weather channel, even if it's immaterial to my life. last fall the weather channel took it upon themselves to start naming storms in winter. you know that hurricanes have long been given names by weather

forecasters. but the weather channel wanted to expand that good thing. and so although it caused quite a stir in the meteorological community, the weather channel is now naming winter storms as well as hurricanes, which is how we got a winter storm with a cartoon fish name here in the northeast last month, taunting me over not being able to fish in this weather. the folks at the weather channel kind of have a point with this, right? if we're going to name hurricanes, why not name big storms all yearlong? first of all, naming things is fun. but it also has a function. it makes them more easily definable as distinct entities. and that can be important when you're talking about a series of things that in memory can sort of all blend together, unless you have a way to remember their distinct characteristics. it analogies as well to what we do when we cover politics. here in cable news land, our seasons are not demark indicated by the calendar, by the rotation

and orbit of the earth. our seasons are demark indicated by the endings and begins of bipartisan control over certain institutions in washington. so our current political storm system as i think of it started in january 2011 when republicans were sworn in to take over the house of representatives after a particularly good midterm election showing. in this season that started january 2011, there have since been a whole series of political storms, crises, calamities. it would be easier to keep them in perspective if we had not just thought of them as a series of things that all sort of seem the same in retrospect, but if they were rememberable things. maybe if we had been naming those things the way that forecasters name storms and the way the weather channel now names storms in every other season too, it would be easier to remember exactly what happened. the first crisis of this political season came in april after the republicans were sworn in january that storm came in the form of a threatened government shutdown. everybody called it a government

shutdown crisis, which is what it was, a shutdown just barely averted by last-minute spending deal. but so as to not confuse that particular government shutdown crisis with every other government shutdown crisis before and since, what if we just named it like the first storm of the season. what if we called it aaron. it starts with a. then the next crisis in the season of republicans controlling the house came about three months later in july that was a debt ceiling standoff. we will call you bilbo. you name storms alphabetically, right? then the other government shutdown fight, not to be confused with aaron. this was the third storm of the season. we will make it carlito, which starts with c. then we got a break from political crises for a while while we had the presidential election. but right after the presidential election was over, we got right back into the storms with the fiscal cliff crisis. and everybody struggled so mightily with the cliff as a metaphor. it would have been much easier if we just named it.

it starts with d at this point, right? so how about deidre. already we have aaron, bilbo, carlito and deidre. and now we're sitting in the middle of the sequester thing, which i declare it will no longer be called the sequester. let us call it earl. it starts with e. the half the fact that nobody cares is nobody can remember the word sequester. and half the people who cannot remember sequester cannot spell it and the other half cannot define it. the sequester crisis? no wonder nobody cares. hence it is political storm earl, the fifth storm of the season. earl is expected to be a damaging storm. economically, earl is expected to cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, jobs in every state in the nation. so far the republican position on earl is that it is going to be devastating. and also, woo! let's do it, bring on earl.

look at this press release from the republicans' reelection arm in the house, the nrcc. you see that they refer to earl as a storm that will, quote, cut devastating segments of our economy. it is a devastating sequester if you ask the republican party, if you ask the nrcc. at the same time, though, they are denouncing the potential damage as devastating, also, quote, house republicans could not be more pleased with their leader right now. republican aides say privately that john boehner sees no need to negotiate. republicans are in a good place, they argue, because they want spending cut, and those cuts are happening. congressman mick mulvaney of north carolina saying, quote, i think it's working to our favor. congressman steve scolese calling the cut a, quote, big victory." that's the earl sequester storm. it's major blind across the board cuts that start taking

effect now. that were purposely designed to be a bad idea for the country so we would be so alarmed by their onset that we would do anything to avert it. we stopped being alarmed. and so now these things designed purposely to be a bad idea, to be awful for the country are now happening. the congressional budget office says it will result in three-quarters of a million jobs lost. republicans say it will be devastating to the country and also that it's working to their favor. it's a big, big victory. between those two things they have decide they'd would like more. they have therefore moved on to planning the next two storms. if this has not been enough, they have two more storms brewing offshore. another potential government shutdown slated for later this month. we will need an f name for that one. so in honor of kevin spacey we will call that one francis. and then republicans are psyched for another debt ceiling crisis that is scheduled to hit around may. we'll need a g name that one.

well will go with gertrude. even though it is in their words devastating, republicans are delighting in the storms they are planning for weeks and months. ruth writing for the "washington post," to listen to congressman paul ryan is to understand that the country should brace for a month's long slog from sequester to continuing resolution to yes, another debt showdown some time this summer. really, i ask? the debt ceiling again? i thought the republicans were determined to avoid replaying that losing hand. not this time, paul ryan said, before the words were even out of my mouth. paul ryan already gleefully planning for the next debt ceiling standoff, the next storm, storm f and storm g, francis and gertrude. what does it mean for us as a country that this is our weather pattern now? that this is how it goes now? this is what governing is like now. what does it cost us? and is this going to be the defining feature of the second term of the obama presidency? joining us now is a man who has spent a significant position of

his career covering real storms. he once explored the idea of lashing himself to a tree to cover one texas hurricane early in his career. he has also weathered a lot of proverbial political storms in washington over his long storied career on network news. dan rather, do those pictures make you feel bad? i think they're great. dan rather is now anchor and managing editor of dan rather reports on axis tv. thank you for being here. it seems like the self-imposed economic crises that we faced before were not flukes, that it's the planned way of governing from here on out. has this happened before in modern american history? >> not exactly this way. we have had government shutdowns before, but i think this is historic in this sense. it's going to be slow to build, but it may last a long time. and the thing that strikes me that is different about this one, frankly, neither side at this moment seems to know whether to bark at the moon or

to wind their watch, which is to say they don't seem to know what it is -- how this will resolve itself. the republicans are sort of doing the equivalent of an end zone dance right now. but it may be premature. but, you know, i keep thinking if you're a soldier in afghanistan on some lonely post, moment to moment on the raise doctor's edge of danger, and you hear or you see on your computer the government is in a shutdown mode, the u.s. government is in shutdown mode, what must they think? what must the chinese think while they're smiling, if not indeed smirking saying this is supposed to be a better system than ours? now, for the american public, what it does, mixing my metaphors here, it forces the public to drink deeply again from the chalice of cynicism of neither side really has the country's best interest at heart. they had their reelection chances and the fight of their party, but not the country. what -- >> well, let me stop you there. do you think that -- do you

think that is substantively true? i mean, what we saw is the democrats were able to pass their plan to avert the sequester in the sense that it got 51 or 52 votes. >> right. >> republicans filibustered it. the president said i would like to avert the sequester with this balance of tax cuts and spending cuts. and the republicans have said unless we get everything that we want, we are not going to do anything. >> well, there is no doubt from any objective analysis, which is very hard in the current partisan political environment, but any objective analysis, this is something that the republicans wanted. >> yeah. >> and they're getting it. it is not something that president obama wanted. in fact, he certainly doesn't want it. a great deal of what it's about, and let's see it for what it is, the republicans want to stymie the second obama term. and they see this as a plan one crisis after another, one chaotic period after another will freeze him in place and in fact ruin his second term, which indeed it could do, keeping in

mind the affect on the economy. what does it do to the country in the meantime? >> 750,000 people are going to lose their jobs based on the cbo based on what just happened. if that's a good start because maybe those people will all vote against who the democratic nominee. >> who is here solution. i give you an oklahoma guarantee, which from my part of the world is a rock solid guarantee that if you said okay, the sequester is now in effect. that means that no member of congress, no member of the senate, indeed, nobody at the white house is going to get paid, we're going to throw all these other people out of work. a lot of them are not going to get paid. until that is settled, you're not going to be paid, i give you an oklahoma guarantee it would be over the day after tomorrow. >> one thing that i was thinking about when you mentioned china there is i worry about not just national security, but all sorts of calamity that can happen to our country in surprising ways and our ability to be resilient in the face of real challenge. >> right.

>> because we keep imposing these crises on ourselves. >> talking about the soldier in afghanistan looking back on this, why is the government shutting down? did something happen to make that happen? no. the government just decided to shut itself down internally. there is no externalality that caused this. while we are tying ourselves up in knots and self-imposing big economic harm on ourselves if the cbo is to be believed, does it make us less able to deal with any eventuality that comes up externally? if something bad happens either in national security terms or some other way that is important to the country, are we less able to deal with it because of this? >> i think so, at least marginal any. i think the answer is yes, because, you know, we've put ourselves forward as the model for the world. we have a republic based on the principles of freedom and democracy. we know how to make it work. now what we're saying to the world, we can't make the thing work. we can't make it work for us. so why should anybody else look

to us for leadership. i don't want to overstate it, but i think the answer to your question is yes. it diminishes our ability to influence events in the rest of the world, and particularly when it's something unforeseen or something down the road. let's remember, iran is still out there. trying to build a nuclear weapon. north korea is still belligerent. all these problems exist. so something could explode at any moment. i do think it makes us a little less powerful, a little less with an ability to influence others because they look at us and say listen, you can't even get your own house in order. don't be telling what's to do. >> dan rather, anchor and editor of "dan rather reports" on axs on tuesday. >> thanks, rachel. i said something that was impolitic. i said it but i meant it. i said antonin scalia behavedly an internet troll this week over the remarks at the supreme

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maybe. you know why i pulled you over today? because i'm a pig driving a convertible? tail light's out.. fix it. digital insurance id cards. just a click away with the geico mobile app. all right. let's cue the michigan tape. if you live in michigan and your town goes broke -- hey, it happens. come on -- the state of michigan has the option to come in and take over your town or your school district, right? the state abolishes your local democracy. so it doesn't matter whoever you voted for, that gets overruled.

instead they give you a single state-appointed overseer. the new unelected boss can do whatever he or she wants, no matter what you voted for. that overseer can fire officials, eradicate the town, close the schools, whatever. on their own terms, nobody else gets a safe. democracy is out. the emergency manager gets full control, personally, full-stop. a local website called eclectablog noticed that if you consider the racial makeup of michigan and the racial makeup of the towns that michigan has taken over, little towns like allen park and benton harbor and ecorse and larger towns like pontiac and also flint, if you then add in detroit, which the state has long been on the verge of taking over, what emerges from the stats is that michigan has been on the verge of eliminating local democracy, the meaningful right to vote for your local officials, it has

been on the verge of eliminating that for almost half the black population of the state, something like 49% of michigan african-americans that has been the warning from democratic activists in the state. but it is not just a warning anymore, because now you can go ahead and fill in detroit on this chart. the state is taking over the largest city in michigan. 49% of african-americans in michigan will no longer have local democracy. republican governor rick snyder announced today he will appoint an emergency manager will nearly unilateral control over the city. governor snyder called this a sad day for detroit. he said he hoped detroit and the state would work together on this. one of the local papers in detroit ran a helpful piece trying to explain the implications of this for local detroit residents. question, if an emergency financial manager is appointed, will detroit elections for mayor and city council still go forward? answer, yes, detroiters will have a primary election in august and a general election in november.

what powers those elected officials will have, though, will be up to the emergency manager. so have fun voting. no, it does not really matter anymore who you vote for. perhaps not surprisingly, a lot of people in detroit today did not react to this news with tons of excitement over having the state abolish the local democracy. some people welcomed the news, definitely. others did not. the head of the local naacp said the city does not need an emergency manager. quote, we urge the state to be our partner. we do not call upon the state to be our overseer. the news agency reuters, quote, it don't take a genius to know what this is all about. they want our money and our land, and no one cares about us. and we're the ones who stuck around, not the white folks. members of the detroit city council today said they were likely to appeal the governor's decision. the reverend david bullock, who has been a guest on our shows with the rainbow-push coalition he calls it, quote, the death of democracy in detroit. he continued, it also means

disaster for detroit with the track record of the emergency manager. the track record. what the reverend is referring to is the track record for putting an emergency manager in charge in michigan, because they have tried this before, right? they have done this in these other places. does it make you less excited to do this to the biggest city in the state, to learn how well it has or has not worked the other places it's been tried? because on the one hand, governor snyder is saying hey, detroit is in trouble, desperate times, desperate measures, we have to fix this. however distasteful, we have to do this. if you take away local democracy, if you take away people's right to vote for people who represent them and instead put one person in charge, in complete personal control, that may be distasteful given we're a democratic country, but it will be efficient. it will work. with respect to the governor, history has not proved him very right in his state. in the other places where this has been tried, what he is

proposing for detroit has not worked there is one exception. the village of three oaks had an excellent experience with an emergency manager. three oaks is a place with 1600 people, very little poverty, a 96% white population, its own poet laureate and a art scene popular enough to attract tourists. they took over three oaks in 2008 under the previous governor. the overseer balanced the budget. the next year turned the government back over to the locals. it was a short-run thing there, and it worked. that's the example of it working. that's the one. it does not seem to have worked out like that anywhere else. the town of hamtrannic which is tucked inside detroit remained under control until 2007. by 2010, they were asking for permission to declare bankruptcy. and by 2013, they are still broke. the city of flint, michigan, got put under emergency manager control in '02. got out in '04 and failed again.

emergency management was imposed in flint again for a second time in 2011. the mayor is now asking for the city to get its democracy back. the emergency manager says actually, you'll have to take that up with the governor. the town of ecorse got put under emergency management in '09. ecorse still has an emergency manager now. the city of pontiac got an emergency manager imposed that same year. pontiac still has one also. asked about an emergency manager trying to fix detroit, the emergency manager in pontiac said, yeah, quote, good luck. also in '09, the detroit public schools got an emergency manager, a state overseer. after a rough few years, people in the detroit schools are begging the federal government to please come and step in. benton harbor, another largely african-american town in michigan, very poor, got imposed emergency management in 2010. they still haven't gotten their democracy back. last year a new emergency manager was imposed in the

muskegon heights school district. he handed the schools to a for-profit company which was soon found to be hiring uncertified teachers, teachers who are not certified to legally teach in the state. or how about highland park next to hamtranick. they got taken over in 2001. now the former manager is facing trial for embezzling highland park. and highland park's school district is under an emergency manager. the town got out in 2009, and then the school district got put back under last year. the track record for emergency managers in michigan kind of makes you wonder what the view must be in allen park, right? the last town that the state took over last year before detroit. that is the track record for emergency managers in michigan. it did work in that one cute little town, 1600 people. so far i don't think you can say it has worked anywhere else. what are we doing with this emergency manager law in

michigan, and in detroit now specifically? what we're doing is giving up on the idea that we fix problems in america through a system of government that is called democracy. and we're giving it up for something that has no proven record of being any better. you lose democracy. you don't necessarily have any hope of fixing anything. why did you give up your deem democracy then? why this is not a bigger national story still blows my mind. r have staying power... or just seem to fade away, day by day? don't compromise. new vidal sassoon pro series from the original salon genius. starts vibrant, stays vibrant. precision mix formula saturates each strand for 100% gray coverage. hydrablock conditioner helps fight fade out for up to 8 weeks. new vidal sassoon lets you say no to compromise and yes to vibrant color like this. new vidal sassoon pro series salon genius. brilliantly priced. [ woman ] too weak.

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the most dramatic event in the news this week happened where you could only read it. it was the supreme court's hearing on the cornerstone of american civil rights law. tonight you will not just have to read it, you can hear it. which may make it easier for you to judge it. that's coming up. mallon brothers magic?

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instead of any one of those other places out there. they are going to take care of my car because this is where it came from. price is right no problem, they make you feel like you're a family. get a synthetic blend oil change, tire rotation and much more, $29.95 after $10.00 rebate. if you take care of your car your car will take care of you. it used to be that the president of the united states every week would deliver a national radio address to the country. fdr was the first president to start doing a weekly radio address, but it was a tradition that stuck even well into the 2000s. it was saturday, right on cue there was president george w. bush delivering his weekly radio address, which is kind of weird and charming, right? technologically we had come a long ways since the radio by the time george w. bush was still doing this. but now it's sort of belatedly, the weekly radio address has been updated. now it's the president's weekly youtube address.

progress. watching the federal government drag itself on to the internet, first slowly and then with enthusiasm and now with alacrity, it's been fun to watch that progress over the years. for example, when the obama administration passed the recovery act, the stimulus back in '09, they simultaneously launched recovery.gov, a website where you can track all the recovery dollars with a click of a mouse, instead of going down to the treasury department or wherever to pore through the documents. so there is often a lag. but government usually embraces the new technology of the day, eventually, especially when it comes to communicating information about how the government works. the key word there, though, is usually there is one very big part of our government, one coequal branch of our government, in fact, that has stubbornly decided that it will fall behind in that area on purpose. what you're looking at here is the supreme court hearing this week on the voting rights act. and this is actually all i can show you of it, drawings. i mean, they're great drawings, but drawings.

that's all we get. we get no still photos, certainly no video. only 18th century technology is welcome. it was not until today, two days after the actual arguments that the supreme court finally got around to posting the audio of those arguments because this court doesn't post audio until fridays. obviously, friday is audio day. but the supreme court's aversion to 21st century technology actually made things a little bit easier today. because when the audio finally was posted, everybody knew to skip right to the 51-minute mark so they could hear conservative supreme court justice antonin scalia making this rather remarkable argument about why he thinks congress voted almost unanimously, and unanimously in the senate, to reauthorize the voting rights act six years ago. this is why he thinks they voted to reauthorize this landmark law that protects minority voting rights. here is how he explains the vote. >> this last enactment, not a single vote in the senate against it. and the house is pretty much the

same. now, i don't think that's attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. i think it is attributable -- very likely attributable to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. it's been written about. whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. >> the thing i was wondering if it would be on the audio, if you would be able to pick it up on the audio that they released that it turns out that you can't because it's too tight from the microphones, the things the mikes did not pick up was the audible gas than you could hear in the courtroom after justice scalia said the words "racial entitlement." the perpetrator pet weighs of racial entitlement, after he suggested that voting had become a racial entitlement in this country that congress can no

longer make impartial decisions about. the supreme court heard argumenting about this week was a challenge to the voting rights act of 1965, specifically section 5 of that act, which require that certain states, mostly in the south, but not entirely have, to get preclearance from the justice department before they're allowed to change their rules around voting. these are states that earned special scrutiny when it comes to voting because of a history of racial discrimination when it comes to voting in their jurisdictions. since the voting rights act passed in 1965, congress has decided four times now, and by very, very large margins each time, to reauthorize it, to reup it. they have determined there is enough of a threat to minority voting rights in this country that this law should remain in place, and this particular remedy within this law should remain in place. congress studied this for months as recently as 2006. ten months of hearings, they gathered 15,000 pages of evidence. they held more than 20 hearings in congress to decide whether this was still a problem and whether this was still an appropriate remedy to the problem. and they decided that in their

judgment, the voting rights act is not just a good law, but necessary one. all of the senators from all of the covered states who voted on it voted unanimously that it should be kept. and the argument presented against it this week by justice antonin scalia was essentially, eh, when they cast those votes, they didn't really mean those votes. >> this is not the kind of a question you can leave to congress. there are certain districts in the house that are black districts by law just about now. and even the virginia senators, they have no interest in voting against this. the state government is not their government, and they're going to lose -- they're going to lose votes if they do not re-enact the voting rights act. even the name of it is wonderful, the voting rights act. who is going to vote against that in the future? >> the name of it is wonderful. it's disgusting. justice scalia, as you can probably gather is almost certainly a vote against the voting rights act. apparently on the basis that he

believes it's some racial entitlement that congress is too scared to get rid of, so we should take 80 of their hands. you could also tell during the arguments this week that even though he does not have the reputation of being quite as purposely inflammatory or confrontational as justice scalia, the chief justice of the court, john roberts is just if not more hostile to the voting rights act. a good part of his job before joining the court. what is going to happen, if you count justices roberts and scalia and justices thomas and alito, who almost always vote with them, if you count them as pretty certain votes against the voting rights act, and you count justices ginsburg, breyer, let's say we start with that, as usual you have the swing vote on the court, justice anthony kennedy, who of course everybody is watching. if all goes as expected, it will

be pretty much one guy deciding the fate of this cornerstone provision of civil rights in america. the cornerstone of civil rights that has protected voting rights in this country for more than a subsequent ration, that has protected those rights in a particular way, to be especially attentive in areas of the country that have had the worse abuses and that are seen as being the most vulnerable. if the court's decision is going to be that close, if it's just going to come down to one guy, does outside pressure matter? a lot of people think a lot is hanging on this decision. in terms of the way people express themselves about that, does it sway the court in one direction or the other? because there is outside pressure on this issue. i mean, this was the scene outside the supreme court on wednesday as the voting rights act was being heard inside. demonstrations by groups, including the naacp, demonstrations by residents of the county in alabama that is at the center of this particular fight, folks that are relying on that lay to keep their voting rights from being infringed on. this sunday a different kind of

pressure. vice president joe biden will travel to alabama, to selma, alabama, to commemorate the civil rights march that took place in that city in 1965 that led to us getting the voting rights act in the first place. this law is something that came about because of public demonstrations. i mean, the edmund pettus bridge and john lewis getting his head bashed in lapped on a sunday. the following monday, eight days later, it was lbj addressing congress, a joint session of congress in a nationally televised speech demanding this law. the voting rights act happened because of demonstrations. it happened because of selma in 1965. can public demonstration now have the effect of helping to save it? joinings us now from selma, alabama for the interview is the director a member of the voting rights act team. >> thanks for having me. >> do you think it is fair the say that public pressure, a social movement, political

activism is a big part of the immediate reason that we got the voting rights act in the first place so, it's appropriate to question whether it might still be effective? >> absolutely, rachel. i was struck by the reality. as i talk to you tonight, i'm less than 100 feet from the edmund pettus bridge where 48 years ago, courageous women, men, and children marched over the edmund put us the bridge to dramatize to the nation, indeed to the world their desire to be treated as equal citizens under the law and to have full access to the ballot. now, you know and your viewers know that when they crossed over the bridge that connects selma, alabama, to montgomery, they were met by alabama state troopers who spat on them, abused them, demeaned them, all because they wanted to dramatize to the world their as americans to access the ballot box. the supreme court is absolutely mindful of where the american people are on the issue of voting rights. but rachel, they're also mindful of where they are on their own

precedent. the supreme court has four times over four decades upheld the constitutionality of the voting rights act against constitutional challenges. its own precedent, rachel, suggests that the supreme court should do that again this time. >> looking at the -- i'm glad that you brought that up, because looking at the ways that this has been challenged in the past, it's obviously been challenged in the political arena. there have been long debates about this in congress. they have always been resolved by overwhelming votes, increasingly overwhelming votes in favor of keeping the act, there has also been challenges up to and including the supreme court fault approximately times. it has always been upheld. what has changed that it seems to threatened now? is there new evidence in fact to suggest that the law is encroaching unconstitutionally on state savrovereignty? is there evidence suggesting that the law isn't there to be addressed anymore? >> in 2006, when congress looked to reauthorize the voting rights

act, as you mentioned in your introduction, they did their homework. they held 21 hearings over ten months, hearing from 90 witnesses both for and against reauthorizing the voting rights act, and created the 15,000 page record which outlined in great detail, and the last reauthorization period more than one thousand proposed discriminatory changes were blocked by section 5 of the voting rights act. the reality is that the theme of the voting rights act is yes there has been tremendous progress in our country since 1965, since brave americans 100 yards from here put themselves in harm's way to get the full access to the ballot box. but there is also another truth about section 5, and that is there is nothing inconsistent about recognizing tremendous progress and yet demanding much more to go. and the reality is that here in alabama, in selma, alabama, the 1990s, section 5 was required to block five discriminatory voting measures in the 1990s alone. alabama is the epitome of a state that should be covered by

section 5. and shelby county, alabama, in particular, which is the place where which the challenge originates, as justice sotomayor at oral argument suggested is the personification of a jurisdiction that is rightfully covered by the voting rights act. >> ryan p. haygood, thank you for helping us understand and respond to. this i really appreciate your time tonight. >> thanks for having me. thank you so much. by the time we have a director of the bureau, tobacco and firearms and explosives, the atf, that person's range of problems may also include printers. hold on. that's coming. how did i know? well, i didn't really. see, i figured low testosterone would decrease my sex drive... but when i started losing energy and became moody... that's when i had an honest conversation with my doctor. we discussed all the symptoms... then he gave me some blood tests. showed it was low t. that's it. it was a number -- not just me. [ male announcer ] today, men with low t have androgel 1.62% (testosterone gel).

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. okay it is 1985, and you have a phone call, you specifically have a cell phone call. do you want to answer it? have you been working out? how is your bicep strength? early cell phones were huge, so big they required their very own carrying kit like a little suitcase. but at the time they seemed awesome, right? the very idea of taking your own phone with you out in the world was so amazing, that who cared if you had to have a car battery in place to do it. either way, they were so clunky and so expensive, the idea evolved quickly from the suitcase nuke in 1995, they got smaller and smaller until they finally had to figure out how much computer audio work we do on them. so it has taken a long time but

we have made the leap. and who knows what they will do in the future? but the way it traveled has not just changed the device but it changed the way we lived. we're at the part of another change driven by technology, where the technology now is clunky and awkward, but if you can imagine your way around that clunkiness and awkwardness, you can see the device leaps forward the way that cell phone tech leapt forward, then these guys may change, too. this is 3-d printing, i don't know if we'll call it that forever. but that is what they call it now. just as a printer, it uses ink and light to create a two dimensional object on paper, these computer-driven machines can use plastics and resins and inks to create the 3-d objects,

anybody can become a manufacturer of anything. the set of instructions that map out the shape of the object you create using the printer, that comes in the form of a computer file. you plug in the file and leave in the 3-d printer to do its work, then protest -- presto, you can manufacture something yourself. these printers are still pretty slow and clumsy and expensive. usually in the thousand or several thousand dollar range. but they have the futuristic objects, that can create like a 3-d printed car, or how about a 3-d prosthetic limb? or how about a 3-d printed gun? the part of this gun printed using the 3-d printer was the weird color there, the part

called the lower receiver, in laymen's terms it is like the engine of the gun, the part that is registered and regulated. you can track all the other parts of the gun, like the metal and muzzle as if they were the part of the metal. that is the part with the serial number, the heart of the gun. and shortly after newtown we reported on this show on an initiative to use 3-d printing to make lower receivers for assault-style rifles. at home. people have started to make lower receivers for ak-47 style weapons at home using a file that you can download on the internet. you can actually download it, right here. i have one on my computer which makes me wonder about the next time i have one of those things where nbc comes and checks my computer. this is what happened when the folks that checked that lower computer, fitted other parts of a gun onto that piece that they printed with a 3-d printer. this is the video they released

of themselves firing bullets out of it. and as you can see, the 3-d printed gun failed and busted apart after it fired about six rounds. which makes it -- yes, a gun. but the technical term for what kind of gun it is, is that it is a crappy gun because it blew apart after six rounds. but this kind of thing probably wouldn't stay a crappy gun for long, that is what i said the day we broadcast that on december 17th, which was three days after newtown. this week, the folks that 3-d-printed the receiver, the one that failed, the one i called the crappy gun. look at it this week, they unveiled this one, it with stood more than 660 rounds of high veve velocity bullets, that holds dozens of bullets. they only stopped firing with what they said was their 3-d

home-printer. they claim this lower receiver is the one they -- the 3-d printed it out of plastic or resin, a and they say they believe it could have easily with stood a thousand rounds if only they had enough bullets to keep testing it. obviously, these guys are very proud of what they accomplished, and politically they wanted the attention. when they first posted the video under the blog, the caption said they welcome congress back from vacation. they also say we have the printed ar-lowers figured out. they say wither gun control, they are doing it for political reasons, they want guns to be unregulatable. 300 guns are not enough, more and more is the solution. but whether you agree with them or not. whether you find what they're doing exciting or terrifying or both, you have to admit it raises questions about law